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WHAT IS REAL DEMOCRACY? 



ANSWERED BY AN EXPOSITION OF 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 



"i — ' 



*? 

BY KARL HEINZEN, 



Published as a Precursor to the Presidential Campaign, 



BY THE 



ASSOCIATION FOE THE PROPAGATION OP RADICAL PRINCIPLES. 






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U. S. A 



S H. LIEBER, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA. 
1871. 



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WHAT IS REAL DEMOCRACY? 



AGENCIES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE STATE. 

A term only belonging, in fact, to the realm of natural 
history, and the world of elements, has become current among 
historians and politicians, although by them analogously 
applied, — we mean the expression 'organic development.' 
It is most often made use of by those teachers of statesman- 
ship who have need of some palliating or imposing phrase by 
which to defend or support that which exists, particularly 
that- among 1 existing things 'which deserves to be destroyed/ 
But even liberal politicians still seriously engage in discussion 
of the question whether States, like plants, develop ' organ- 
ically \ that is to say, by means of an unconscious, limited 
growth, determined by the first germ, or whether, in their 
origin and development, they are and should be the mutable 
work of the thinking and directing mind of man : in other 
words, the question would be — Is man an unconscious pro- 
duction of nature, like the plant ? or is he a self-conscious, 
self-determining, thinking being? If he is the latter, no one 
who agrees to this will care to take upon himself the respon- 
sibility of the doctrine that an association of those self- 
conscious, self-determining, thinking beings, in regulating 
their affairs, are obliged to give up or do away with that 
which is the greatest advantage of the single individual ; 
that if common sense and his own interests bid the single 



individual undo a step in the wrong direction, turn back upon 
a false path, rectify a committed mistake, an organized union 
of single individuals might follow common sense and preserve 
their interest by doing just the reverse of all this : and yet 
the teachings of the organic development of States is nothing 
but this nonsensical doctrine in an other garb. It is a coarse 
mysticism, yet involved in the superstitions of former times, 
which, however, suits equally well both that indolent thought- 
lessness which does not take the trouble to arrive at any 
clearness in regard to the questions naturally arising in an 
organized society , and that pseudo-democratic prudence which 
fancies that all political problems may be solved by a shiftless 
laissey aller, as well as that reactionary spirit of calculation 
which attempts to keep the influence of thinking minds at a 
distance from political development, so that every ( historical ' 
wrong may grow on unchecked. Again, this mysticism is 
closely allied to that pernicious, bigoted belief that ascribes 
all evil issues and events brought about by the folly of men, 
as well as every fortunate turn their heedlessness has not 
deserved, to some superhuman power or dispensation, so that 
one does not tend to increase their prudence, nor the other to 
stimulate their energies. Have they caused a misfortune, by 
some action or non-action, then they save themselves from a 
recognition of their guilt by pointing to the will of providence. 
Have they escaped some danger, with * more luck than sense/ 
to which their carelessness had exposed them, then they avoid 
reflecting upon the conditions of their future safety by render- 
ing thanks to a merciful Supreme Being. 

If ten intelligent men, having a common purpose, should 
constitute themselves a society, it would not enter their minds 
to rely, for attaining their object, upon c organic develop- 
ment', which they can not survey, nor yet hold in their own 
hands ; but after examining, and agreeing upon the conditions 
of their union, they will expect success only from a correct 
choice of the needful ways and means, — in short, from their 



own intelligence and activity. Should they come to the con- 
clusion that they have made a mistake, or started from a 
false principle, they will correct their own work. It is exactly 
the same with an intelligent State, except that here the inter- 
ests are multiplied, and the greater number of members, as 
well as the extension of space, make a rapid survey and com- 
munication difficult and complicated. But this complication, 
instead of justifying a thought- and action-less falling back 
upon the mysticism of 'organic development', makes rather 
the imperative demand upon us to so act upon the universal 
understanding that the nature and aim of society will become 
clear to all, and to simplify the mechanism of the State as 
much as possible. 

Of course, the more primitively a State is constituted 
the more forcibly will its condition and development recall 
organic, natural formations ; but a purely organic, political 
development, effected only by a blind pressure forward, or a 
state of unconscious, uncontrollable growth, existing in pres- 
ent elements and circumstances, was never known. Every 
State, even the most uncivilized of the remotest past, was an 
artificial production which, at least in its chief, claimed for 
itself all the intellectual powers existing at the time. So 
many of its elements as excluded themselves from taking an 
intelligent part in public proceedings were but material made 
use of by the other elements : its further development, how- 
ever, only consisted, and could only consist, in the increase 
of those elements who took such active, intelligent part. 
If we picture to ourselves a political association numbering 
thirty or fifty millions of clear-minded, intelligent people who 
all recognize and claim their just part in the community on 
the basis of perfect equality, we shall find that not an inch 
of room is left for a mysterious 'organic development' ; and 
ail manifestations, all actions, all reforms, every step of prog- 
ress made in the State, will be the pre-calculated result of the 
intelligent action of these thirty or fifty millions. 



While we thus banish all mystical views that would make 
political activity and development dependent upon mysterious 
laws or powers that may not be controlled by the members 
of the State, we are far from losing sight of the outer condi- 
tions of development, from considering the necessary effects 
of natural causes as disposed of, and of excluding from our 
calculations the obstacles brought about by given circum- 
stances, for, in short, from imagining that we may govern by 
the speculative mind alone, every element and actual fact that 
exerts an influence on society, or perhaps even do away with, 
b} 7 ignoring, it. To make our calculations according to 
existing circumstances is a requirement that we need not 
particularly recall to even the most ordinary mind. What 
we must recall, however, is the requirement that circumstances 
must be acted upon with intelligence. Wherever these two 
contradict each other, we must simply put the question 
whether circumstances or intelligence shall give way. Who- 
ever decides against the latter has ' organic development' with 
him, and must suffer the consequences. Kingship, aristocracy, 
slavery, are historical institutions whose advocates attempt 
to perpetuate as the basis of 'organic development'. Who- 
soever does not oppose this pretension with the peremptory 
demand made by reason, that those institutions must be com- 
pletely abolished, will wait in vain to see the republic, equality, 
liberty, developed from their * evolution'. A sensible politi- 
cian will just as little expect freedom when the conditions 
that naturally lead to it do nbt exist as demand equal per- 
formances of unequal abilities, or hope to make new circum- 
stances without the necessaiy preparations. Ask the present 
Chinese, for instance, to proclaim a republic, of which the}- 
have so far not the slightest idea or conception. The question 
is to follow up recognized and indisputable aims, in the direc- 
tion of which development according to reason, not according 
to given circumstances, goes on, in spite of all obstacles and 
under all conditions ; not to sacrifice the general principles 



of reason to any regard for particular circumstances, or 
because of the difficulty of their immediate execution ; and 
not to expect progress of any mysterious agencies, but to 
call to mind upon every occasion this truth — The attainment 
of any progressive aims solely depends, and must depend, on 
the intelligence and will of the members of the State. Is it 
impossible for the Chinese to be republicans just yet, then 
must the republicans not turn Chinese on their account, but 
wait until the sons of the Celestial Empire may some time 
establish a republic too, and labor to that effect. Of the 
spirit of serfdom they will be cured by no organic develop- 
ment, but only by the gradual rise and progress of republican 
views and convictions, whether these be brought into active 
play by the extreme consequences of present circumstances 
or by a train of abstract reasoning. 

Where some perceive ' organic development ' others would 
see the 'logic of e vents', which is wont to accompany the 
former. Both terms point to similar conditions, that is, such 
in which human beings are surprised and pushed forward by 
effects whose causes they either created or suffered to exist, 
through obstinacy or want of foresight. That there is logic 
in events is as much as to say, in these cases, that those who 
brought them about had none. He who holds fast to the logic 
of correct principles is saved from the logic of events, which, 
to give it an other name, is nothing but the ill experience 
caused by unlogical action. It is only possible to foresee 
consequences through the recognition of principles whose 
embodiment or realization constitutes actual development. 
History shows that nations as well as their rulers were 
scourged and punished and compelled to. change their action 
by the logic of events, because they did not permit themselves 
to be taught, guided, and warned by the logic of principles. 
Wherever they progressed, they did so because they were 
obliged to, not because such was their intention : they aban- 
doned the old because it had grown to be untenable and 



8 



insupportable, not because they had in advance recognized or 
aimed at the new. Even slavery was not abolished in the 
Republic of North America because the nation had recognized 
its wrong in principle, and calculated its destructive conse- 
quences in advance, but because these unlooked-for conse- 
quences swelled into a fearful evil that threatened to over- 
whelm the countiy. The logic of events forced the people at 
last to acknowledge their want of logic in principle by at 
least annihilating its consequences. As professor of the logic 
of events, Jefferson Davis had to teach them what they had 
not learned of the former Jefferson, the teacher of the logic 
of justice. This lesson however, paid for at so dear a cost, 
which recent events have taught them, will be entirely lost 
upon them in other questions if they have not through it 
arrived at the conclusion that principles altogether must con- 
stitute the line of conduct in the development of the State, 
of the whole State, and that the ' organic development' of con- 
ditions and institutions that exist in contradiction to correct 
principles is nothing but a growth of destruction. 

The great question arises whether the nations, after 
reaping for thousands of years only misfortune and misery 
from the 'organic development' of existing circumstances 
and perverse institutions, and after having been shown the 
consequences of their want of foresight and timely resolution 
by the logic of events, will not arrive at length at such a stand- 
point of intelligence and energy as will enable them to so 
form their own destinies with clear self-determination, accord- 
ing to the immutable laws of right and reason, so organize 
their relations to each other, so secure their reforms, and 
thereby balance their interests, that they may in future be 
spared from oppression as well as plunder, wars as well as 
revolutions, in short, from all former calamities and convul- 
sions. Not organic development but developed organization is 
the means to this end. As in physics, thus in politics pre- 
vention should make the cure unnecessary. Of course, it is 



only possible for the people to possess the capacities for this 
under a democratic form of government, where free expres- 
sion, according to generally accepted rules, is secured to all 
desires and interests ; and since we are to analyze the ques- 
tion what constitutes true democracy, our first task was to 
purify the ground on which it is to be built up from all the 
obscuring fogs of mystical views and beliefs. A people pos- 
sessing a democratic organization may attain every thing it 
requires ; and for every thing it lacks, a people possessing a 
democratic organization is itself responsible. 



-o- 



CHIEF CONDITIONS OF TRUE DEMOCRACY. 

Perhaps the word democracy' suffers even more abuse 
than the word * freedom '. What were the southern slave- 
holders fighting for in the war of the rebellion ? Every third 
word with them was their 'liberty', — that was to say, the 
liberty to make slaves of other human beings. Every Euro- 
pean despot does battle for the 'liberty of his people' when 
he leads them on to be slaughtered in his struggle with some 
foreign despot, his competitor in the business of oppression. 
L. Napoleon, a chief representative of this liberty, was at the 
same time democratic through and through. Sworcl in hand, 
he drove the people to the polls, so as to put an end to all 
democracy by his ' democratic' election to the imperial throne. 
In a similar manner, he attempted to make Mexico happy by 
one of his colleagues, who he said was 'democratically 
chosen.' In Prussia, whose king, as emperor of Germany, 
also discovered Napoleonic ' liberty', all are with characteristic 
modesty called 'democratic' who do not actually swear by 



10 



the absolute rulership of 4 by the grace of God \ The Eng- 
lish, with their inviolable queen, whose whole task seems to 
consist in furnishing as large a number of descendants as 
possible, on which the property of her subjects may be squan- 
dered, with their privileged aristocracy, that owns almost all 
the soil in the country, and their six millions of paupers who 
have no right to vote, consider themselves the first democrats 
in the world. They are only excelled by the ' democrats ' of 
this country, who discovered the spirit of true democracy to 
consist in the unchecked trade in human flesh, and in the 
right of parts of the State to commit with impunity crimes 
against the whole of the State, in the name of Slavery. 

In view of such a misuse of language, and such a falsifi- 
cation of conception, it is necessary in a few words to explain 
true democracy, and define its conditions. 

By the people, unless it permits itself to be degraded by 
some despot to an irresponsible herd of subjects, we under- 
stand not some select or separate part of the body politic, 
but the whole population dwelling upon the soil of the State. 
The people aud the nation in this sense are one. The govern- 
ment of the people (democracy) then means the government 
of the whole population, or nation (so far as it is not excluded 
from participation in it for particularly valid causes, such as 
minority or loss of reason) . Democracy without an equality 
of rights of the whole people is a contradiction in terms. The 
authorization of one part of the population to govern, with 
the exclusion of any one other, is even in its mildest form 
aristocracy, or ochlocracy, but not democracy. And if a 
so-called demo-cratic body politic of one hundred millions 
exclude only the smallest fraction of its number, say one 
hundred individuals, from the right to vote, it will consist 
of one hundred millions less one hundred aristocrats. So long 
however as the equal rights of women are not acknowledged, 
true, complete democracy is out of the question anywhere : 
so far only andro-cracy exists all over the world. 



11 



So soon as the participation of the whole people is neces- 
sary for the realisation of democracy, it also requires a com- 
mon center, where the universal will may manifest itself, and 
be put into action. A scattering of this manifestation and 
putting into action necessarily destroys the unity of the 
people, and changes democracy into anarchy. A sovereignty 
of States or provinces or communites would be the absolute 
dissolution of the State. 

Democratic principles are always put into practice 
through the votes of the majority. This majority, however, 
can only be justified in its action if, and so long as, it grants 
to the minority the same means of action and of expression 
as are possessed and made use of by itself. Without unlim- 
ited freedom of the press, and of public discussion for all, 
and of everything, it is as impossible to think of democracy 
as without equal rights before the law and at the polls. 

No citizen is bound to recognize a government in whose 
establishment he was not able to cooperate by freely giving 
his vote : none is bound to obey laws that were made without 
his consent. Such a government would be a despotism to 
him, and such laws only dictates of absolute power. 

Democrac} 7 is destroyed so soon as it institutes a power 
which is capable of opposing the will of the people, or of 
leaving it unexecuted. The will of the people is, and must 
be, the sole law ; and to execute this law, tools, but not 
rulers, are needed. In order to be really able to rule, the 
will of the people should be manifested as directly as possi- 
ble both in making and in executing the laws. Their will 
must not be suspended in order to delegate its power to 
officials, or its sovereignty to representatives. As it is always 
in their pleasure to undo again acts they have concluded, so 
must they always be able to dispose of the agents entrusted 
with the execution of those acts. These agents must not 
only be accountable to but also ever dependent on the people. 
As there should not exist in the State any institutions or any 



12 



law, any power or any court, which is not an expression or a 
tool of the will of the people, so should there be none either 
that might hamper it or exclude themselves from its juris- 
diction. 

These, then, are in brief the chief conditions of a real or 
direct democracy, without which there can be no true freedom, 
no lasting security, no universal progress. In the course 
of our examination, we shall see in how far the constitution 
of the United States, that has heretofore always been regarded 
as an ideal of democratic institutions, fulfils these conditions. 



COMPROMISE AND PRINCIPLE. 

We have just made the demand that not the unchecked 
natural growth of that which exists, or that which has acci- 
dentally originated, — this being called organic development, 
— but the leading principle of reason should shape and guide 
the movements of the body - politic. Of course we do not by 
this make the assertion that this leading principle existed, 
and could exist, from the beginning. It is not necessary to 
teach anyone any more that States did not at first spring into 
being as the embodyment of pre-developed theories, but 
through the cooperation and putting to use of existing, actual 
circumstances, often enough brought about by mere accident. 
Theories, only developed from experiences supplied by this 
cooperation of circumstances, and reforms at first were nothing 
but the result of unforeseen evils. In this manner, however, 
some insight was gradually gained, and the attempt made to 
subordinate given circumstances to the theories that had been 



13 



developed from experience, and to remodel the bod}' politic 
according to these. Sparta made such an experiment through 
Lycurgus, Athens through Solon ; and every people that after 
a revolution adopted a new constitution did the same. 
The success of such remodeling, however, always depends on 
two conditions,— first, in the establishment of correct princi- 
ples for the future, and, secondly, in the annihilation of the 
destructive elements of the past. Yet, it is exactly the neg- 
lect of these conditions which generally defeats these attempts 
at reformation. Even when correct principles for the future 
have been found, either insight or determination or power is 
wanting to sufficiently do away with the destructive remnants 
of the circumstances that have been triumphed over for the 
present. They are generally again assimilated with the 
process of development, either by silent connivance or by a 
compromise, where confidence in the effect of the victory won, 
and the progress of time, serves as the deceptive mediator ; 
and the consequence is wont to be that these elements, by 
the aid of old connections, means, and experiences, gradually 
regain their former power, and then again necessitate a new 
and still more thorough reformation. Every compromise, 
then, that does not at least completely secure the gradual sup- 
planting of the old by the new is nothing but the apparent 
cancelation of an old debt by the contraction of a new, or the 
eradication of one disease by the inoculation of an other. 

The danger attendiug the conclusion of a compromise is 
all the greater the more we are deceived in its nature. Who- 
ever adopts something that, at certain times and under certain 
circumstances, may have served as an expedient to escape 
certain embarrassments as a cure on this account, at all 
times and under all circumstances, and as a preventive of all 
embarrassments, condemns himself to an everlasting strug- 
gle with evils that he considers benefits ; and, by mistaking 
their nature, cuts off all means of having them removed. 

Whoever may desire to have a striking proof of the truth 



14 



of these remarks, let him look back on the struggles that 
have grown out of the constitution of the United States, 
while the people were continually praising this same consti- 
tution as the panacea of all evils, and desired to preserve it 
unchanged. 

The constitution of the United States is the result of a 
four-fold compromise : — 

Firstly, of unity with individual interests, — of national 
sovereignty with the so-called sovereignty of States. 

Secondly, of the republic with monarchy. 

Thirdly, of freedom with slavery. 

Fourthly, of democracy with aristocracy. 

It is founded, therefore, on the four-fold combination of 
principles perfectly incompatible, and eternally excluding each 
other, — founded for the purpose of equally preserving these 
principles in spite of their incompatibility, and of carrying out 
their practical results, — in other words, for the purpose of 
making an impossible thing possible. 

This combination, and the contradiction of principles 
which it covers, was only partially recognized when the con- 
stitution was first drawn up ; and most people do not recog- 
nize it yet. The constitution had momentarily served the 
purpose of uniting under difficult circumstances contradictory 
elements to one apparently harmonious whole ; moreover, it 
certainly possessed indisputable advantages that favorably 
distinguished it from other constitutions ; and this was suffi- 
cient for its admirers to set it up as an unsurpassable, inviola- 
ble model for all times. Even all these advantages for devel- 
opment, which the United States owed only to the natural 
qualifications and the isolated position of their country, were 
ascribed to the influence of a constitution which in some 
other country, more exposed to the influence of heterogenious 
surroundings, might not have remained unchanged ten years. 
But these deceptions not only did not check the antagonism 
of incompatible elements, secured by the constitution, and 



15 



apparent in all the history of the United States, but they 
made it even more destructive since its causes were not clearly 
perceived, and, therefore, the means to end it not adopted. 

Only in regard to one contradiction clearness has been 
gained. The rebellion of the slaveholders has opened the 
eyes of even the most devoted admirers of the constitution 
to the fact that freedom and slavery can not exist together, 
even in the name of the great founders of the republic and 
that of the much-praised union. A distinguished American 
statesman strikingly characterized this constitutional copula- 
tion by the remark that "the war of the rebellion was waged 
in order to expound the constitution." A most costly con- 
stitution which requires such expounding ! Those who but a 
short time back desired to preserve this cherished constitu- 
tion unchanged at every price now congratulate themselves 
that an amendment has delivered them from the unpleasant 
task of serving both as an authority for as well as a protec- 
tion to two principles eternally at war with each other to the 
death. Since a beginning has been made, however, with this 
one amendment, and its most necessary supplements, propo- 
sitions for a dozen other amendments have already followed 
in its train, — all called forth by that one evil, slavery „now 
abolished at least in name and principle. 

Should not this be an inducement to even the most con- 
tented admirers of things as they are to reflect on the other 
hostile principles as contradictions which men still attempt to 
keep united by the paragraphs and the authority of the con- 
stitution, whose union, however, must and will prove in its 
practical consequences as impossible to preserve, and in part 
as pernicious, as that of freedom with slavery? Are we to 
wait till here, too, we are taught better by experiences that 
must be paid for by incalculable sacrifices? Is the consti- 
tution to retain its other defects, too, till it is 'expounded' 
by civil war ? or shall we conclude to listen to reason while it 
is yet time ? permit the critical analysis of an age that has 



16 



since made a great step forward to take the place of the blind 
worship of institutions of former times, and learn to trust in 
immutable principles more than in untenable compromi- 

It seems to us the time is not far distant when the people 
of the United States should prepare for a national convention, 
there to remodel their constitution in the spirit of true democ- 
racy. A short critical review may help to point the way. 



ORIGIN OF THE UNION. 

In general, compromises have been the practical means 
of reformation and transition in political developments. Of 
the United States, however, it might be said that they came 
into the world with a compromise, and through a comprom: 
Their original members were still less prepared for a union 
than for a republic. The different English colonies, having 
sprung into being through associations for settlements, and 
grants of land to siugle founders, had so little in common 
that they were not even permitted to carry on trade with each 
other. Outer circumstances first forced them to unite, — the 
same power, moreover, which had separated them. Only the 
arbitrary act of taxation without representation, that pressed 
equally on all, the Stamp Act. the duty on imports, and 
similar annoyances, roused a spirit of unity and a desire for 
association. But even upon this desire no action was taken 
till it rose into a positive, exacting necessl: :hat in the 

beginning only seven of the colonies came to the joint con- 
clusion of declaring themselves independent ; the other six 
entered the union at a later period ; and only the war against 
England induced them in 1776 to establish a confederacy. 



17 



But even in this confederacy there was so little true patriot- 
ism and public spirit to be found that without a French loan 
and the aid of Generals Rochambeau and Lafayette, who 
made it possible for Washington to win the decisive victories 
of New York and Yorktown, the whole movement would 
probabl} 7 have failed. It is questionable, too, whether without 
France, which in 1783 concluded the peace of Versailles with 
England, and therein stipulated the independence of North 
America, that independence would have been preserved and 
maintained. 

After the conclusion of peace, however, the evils of a 
loose connection, brought about only by outward dangers, 
became more than ever apparent. There was only the choice 
between a closer union or new isolation of the single States ; 
universal dismemberment was to be prevented ; and after the 
confederation had barely escaped the danger of being broken 
up again by the struggles of the federalists and democrats, 
it was not till 1787 that the constitution was adopted, and 
the union firmly established, all conflicting party interests 
and embarrassments of the varying parts of the country 
being spared and protected as much as possible by compro- 
mises. Let us consider first 



THE COMPROMISE BETWEEN A UNITED STATE 
AND A CONFEDERACY. 

What, then, was this union and confederacy ? An abso- 
lutely necessary association of different colonies that originally 
had nothing in common but their oppressor, and were brought 
together by nothing but the common war against him. Neither 



18 



a natural impulse nor an originally common interest was the 
tie of their union, and their party egotism insisted on making 
this tie as loose as possible, for which reason they did not rise 
to the conception of one common State, but attempted to per- 
petuate their individual existence as united States. And this' 
accidental association of political individuals, founded through 
no inner necessity, but brought about by outward considera- 
tions, and even yet marked as single corporations by a consti- 
tutional stamp of separation, — this association is to be looked 
upon as the most perfect embodyment of the conception of an 
ideal State ! making a virtue of necessity, that is to be set 
up for a model of creation, which in fact was nothing but a 
work of expediency at a time of temporary danger from with- 
out, and then was barely changed into an expedient to serve 
interior purposes also. We should be very desirous to hear 
the answer of some genuine defender of the federal sj^stem 
to the question what the fathers of this republic would have 
done, or should have done, if only a single colony had existed 
at the time of the declaration of independence in place of 
thirteen. Would they have divided or dismembered this 
one and made thirteen of it in order to form ' United States * 
instead of a united State, and thus realize the present so 
highly-lauded ideal, where the single members, with their 
individual egotism, still constantly rebel against the common 
interests of the whole body ? They would have been content 
with that division which the mechanism of government requires 
in every larger State, that is, with the classification into 
counties, districts, and communities, and the proposition to 
introduce a spirit of dualism into their union, by the formation 
of States to be as independent as possible, would certainly 
have appeared to them like intentional treason. The predi- 
lection of Americans for the character of their confederacy, 
which has given them so much trouble already, and even 
through its adopted child, slavery, brought them to the brink 
of ruin, can only be explained by the blind prejudice that 



19 



long habit is wont to produce, and that occasionally amounts 
to actual ridiculousness. Nowhere, however, has this predi- 
lection appeared more ridiculous than in President Grant's 
message of February 7th of this, year, where he recommends 
congress to elevate the character of the embassy to the Ger- 
man 'Empire', but just newly cemented with blood, by an 
increase of salary. In this message he makes the discovery 
that the military connection of the German States, under a 
caricature of the bug-bear in Kyffhauser, "in some manner 
resembles the American Union", and must, therefore, " arouse 
the deep sympathy of the people of the United States." He 
sees in this " event" an adoption of " the American system of 
union", while it does not disturb him in the least to be 
obliged to acknowledge that the separate German 'father- 
lands' were divided and separated by the dynastical jealousy 
and the ambition of short-sighted rulers. But the German 
fatherlands were not only separated by, they also originated 
through, these rulers, formerly plundering knights -errant, 
who stole a piece of land with their two-legged chattels, and 
later, according to how much more they stole, or bought, or 
inherited, assumed the title of duke, king, etc. Now, instead 
of starting from the idea that these thieves, who stole land 
and human beings, should not have existed at all, or been 
swept from off the face of the earth as soon as possible, by 
which the division and separation of the German people would 
have been prevented at the very outset, our statesman, Gen- 
eral Grant, considers the existence of these thieves, and the 
separation caused by them, as a necessary and desirable con- 
ditio q, so that at a later period might spring from it the pos- 
sibility and necessity of a union, and perceives in this the 
development of his American ideal State. It is almost like 
breaking a man's arms and legs, in order to make his limbs 
barely whole again by a superficial cure, and then setting him 
up as a model of good health to those who have always enjoyed 
unbroken limbs ; and if this model, then, meets a companion 



20 



who has undergone the same fate, suffered the same misfor- 
tune, he feels "deep sympathy" with him, and proudly con- 
gratulates him on the advantage of having mended limbs like 
himself, instead of sound ones like foolish, common-place 
people. 

So long as this planet is in existence, no united State 
ever yet sprung into being of its own accord from natural 
impulse as the manifestation of an inner necessity, or the 
embodyment of an original conception of a State. All united 
States were established thiough outward causes. They were 
always the children of the distress caused by outside wars ; 
and when those were over, they became .the generators of 
inner, civil wars. The Greeks were forced into a union by 
the Persians, the Netherlands by the Spaniards, the Swiss by 
the Austrians, the North Americans by the English, and the 
Germans by the French ; and as they all have the same origin, 
the same fate awaits them all, — either to be separated again 
by inner dissensions or to be blended into a real, a united, 
State. This, not taking into any consideration any outward 
causes, is also an inner, logical necessity : for if the single, 
united States are strong enough to assert their individuality, 
they will feel neither the want of subordinating themselves so 
much to the power of the confederacy that this is enabled to 
solve its problem, nor any inclination to do so ; and if they 
are not so strong, they will lose with the power also the pur- 
pose for which they might desire to perpetuate their existence 
as separate States. 

To illustrate the necessity of such a course by examples, 
it is enough to cast a look on the latest history of the most 
highly-praised confederacies, those of Switzerland and North 
America. Switzerland attempted to guard the celebrated 
peculiarities and local difference of interest as much as possi- 
ble by preserving sovereignty of the cantons. What followed 
as the consequence ? There developed in the sovereign hot- 
beds of philistinism, of bigotry, of reaction, of treason, such 



21 



threatening "peculiarities" and contradictions against the 
common interests of the republic that they endangered the 
whole confederacy, and the country was obliged to put an end 
to them by main force through a war ; and after this bloody 
lesson had been taught, the constitution of the confederacy 
was completely remodeled, so that now the federal govern- 
ment possesses even greater ascendancy over the cantons 
than the cantons once possessed over the impotent govern- 
ment. Only an other foreign war is needed to force Switzer- 
land to adopt a course that must lead to a united State. And 
how is it with the North American union, that formerly put 
forth such tender care for the preservation of Southern pecu- 
liarities ? A much severer lesson was administered to it by 
the rebellion of the slaveholders than to the Swiss confedera- 
tion by the war of the Jesuits ; but although congress has 
since then often been obliged to reject and suppress the 
refractoriness and the individual pretensions of single States 
in the spirit and in the interest of the common weal, no one 
appears to have yet arrived at the conclusion that these dis- 
sensions can not end before a united State is definitely estab- 
lished, that a federal State is a mistake in principle, and, 
therefore, in practice, too, and that the local peculiarities to 
be preserved by it, which are in opposition to the idea of 
unity, and, therefore, to the common interest, have no right 
of existence, much less to constitutional protection. The 
State rights, so jealously guarded by the 'democrats*, are in 
practice but a safe-guard for individual rights ; and without 
them it would have been as impossible for slavery to take 
root in America as for the rule of the Jesuits to grow up in 
Switzerland. A safe-guard of freedom, however, against the 
federal power, as their defenders claim for them, they can not 
logically be for this reason, — that we should then be obliged 
to assume they would in a given case possess an ascendancy 
over that power, and thereb} 7 annihilate the confederacy. The 
balance of common and local rights and interests is just as 



22 



much of an untenable fiction and delusion as that of the bal- 
ance of the different State powers. In the State, in the demo- 
cratic State, there can exist but one supreme interest, that 
of the whole people, represented in the central government. 

It becomes plain from what has been said that the federal 
State, which is called a safe-guard of democracy, is in truth 
actually undemocratic, a constant hindrance of true democ- 
racy, and a clog on universal progress. In this connection, 
I need only call to mind the absence of a common code of 
laws and system of education, to which only now some atten- 
tion is being given in Washington, and the opposition which 
all propositions for so-called interior improvements are obliged 
to contend against there. 

The prejudice in favor of the federal State quite com- 
monly entertained may be very simply explained from the 
fact that it was always only free States, republics, that were 
wont and able to form a union. In the very nature of the 
thing, such republics, founded by single communities, are 
originally small, while monarchies attempt to extend their 
territory by conquest as soon as possible. When these small 
republics, then, are threatened by any danger, which generally 
proceeds from monarchical conquerors, they feel too weak to 
meet it singly, and the common necessity of defence united 
them not only for the moment but also makes plain to them 
what other interests they have in common for whose protec- 
tion that form of union serves, which is called a federal State. 
Now, instead of recognizing that those advantages of freedom 
which federal States are wont to show are to be ascribed only 
to the original nature of their single individuals, that is, to 
the republic in itself, they are erroneously supposed to be the 
outgrowth of the form of their union, the federal system. 
Again, monarchies, the representatives of non-freedom, are 
not capable of real union at all, because they do not admit 
of any equality of rights among the confederates, but require 
the predominating action of a single power, towards which 



23 



the others occupy more or less the position of vassals. Only 
a Prussian prince who carries on the work of making federal 
unions by means of 'blood and iron', but was obliged to 
pause halfway, could have had the idea of trying as a moment- 
ary expedient an experiment with a monarchical federal State. 
But whoever enjoys sound eye-sight may already perceive the 
great black and white sack prepared in which one member 
of the German confederacy after the other is to disappear, 
with every one of Grant's "peculiarities" ; and if the emperor 
mania was necessary at any rate, in order to educate the Ger- 
man nation by a pessimistical course up to a republic, it is 
very desirable that the black and white sack should be filled 
full as soon as possible. Through a united monarchy, the 
Germans will then be spared from the wearysome labor of 
attaining a united republic by going through a union similar 
to the American, while France, the much abused, is far in 
advance in regard to the attainment of such a republic. 



CENTRALIZATION. 

This united republic is an actual bug-bear to the adher- 
ents of the federal republic. The horrible vision by which 
they are haunted is the danger of ' centralization 9 . They mean 
with the evil of the independence of States to contend against 
the evil of independent, centralization, without considering 
that both evils are unnecessary, and may be equally well 
abolished at the same time. They would soon forget their 
fear if they would do away with that want of reflection which 
builds up the republic on monarchical institutions, and then 
expects it to show anti-monarchical results. Whoever cen- 



24 



tralizes the power and the means of the people in a mon- 
archical head, separated from the people, will prove himself a 
fool if he imagines he may establish a democracy only by 
giving that head a republican name. Centralized power in 
the hands of a 'republican' president is only different in name 
from the centralized power in the hands of a king. If the 
character of the State, however, be such that the people rule 
at the pinnacle as well as at the basis, then centralization is 
the simplest means for the manifestation and execution of 
the universal will. The center can only rule over the circle, 
if all power actually proceeds from the former: does the 
power, however, freely flow into the center from all parts of 
the circle only to unite there, then this center will be but the 
form and the means of the universal power that can never 
become dangerous to itself. It is one of the most preposter- 
ous suppositions in the world to believe that a free people, 
itself holding and exercising its whole power, instead of 
delivering it up to an independent rule, would ever in the 
centralization of its will oppose this same will or annul it : 
could ever turn the government against itself as a means 
of oppression, after making that government but the means 
of manifesting and executing its desires : that it would have 
the same danger to fear from a center which can not exist 
and work at all without its (the people's) action as from a 
center to whom it delivers up all action, and all means thereto. 
The prejudice against centralization originated through 
absolute monarchies, particularly through the warning exam- 
ple of France. Here no one takes into consideration, how- 
ever, that the union of all means of power and of rulership in 
the hands of an authority outside of and above the people is 
the direct contrary to a union of those means through the 
people themselves. If the people surrender their sword to a 
master, they are in his power ; but, if every citizen has his 
hand on the hilt of that sword, it is ridiculous to imagine 
that he will draw it on himself. It is equally ridiculous to 



25 



fear that the separate parts of the State would make use of 
their free union in the central government to put fetters on 
themselves at home, that is, to have the central government 
rule over the local affairs of the municipalities, as was the 
case in monarchical, centralizing France. • As a matter of 
course, they would introduce a constitution for the munici- 
palities, according to general principles, like the constitution 
of a State ; but they would have no manner of interest in 
taking its enforcement from the municipal powers, and charg- 
ing it upon the central government. In France, too, after 
the monarchical yoke had been thrown off, it became plain 
that the first desire of the people was the emancipation of the 
municipal powers from the central government. In short, it 
is a supposition altogether contradictory in itself that true 
democracy, which permits of no power outside of the people, 
should make use of the State as a whole in order to arrange 
and govern it undemocratically in detail. The separate execu- 
tive power, and the representative system, it is these alone which 
make centralization a danger and a means of oppression, 
because, as we shall see further on, they entirely exclude real 
democracy. 



THE COMPROMISE OF MONARCHY WITH THE 

REPUBLIC. 

The question whether there should be a i united State or 
a confederation of States' required a detailed answer, because 
this point is in general so little understood. It touches, too, 
the chief compromise with which the other compromises of 
incompatible contradictions are connected, and which gave 



26 



rise to the constitution of this 'model republic*. The second 
compromise we have to take into consideration was that of the 
republic with monarchy. When the constitution of the United 
States originated there was no proper pattern to copy. The 
nearest pattern was the constitution of England, under which 
the United States themselves had grown to power ; and 
against which they would not have rebelled at all had the 
rights it guarantied been accorded to them as fully as to the 
mother country. It is not surprising, therefore, that they 
made the English constitution the basis of their own. It is 
well known that several of the prominent statesmen of that 
time were favorably inclined towards a constitutional mon- 
archy, after the model of the English ; and equally noted 
that it only depended on Washington's will to be made king 
of North America. Had this man, like the brand of European 
princes, possessed so little self respect as to consider it com- 
patible with his dignity as a man and a human being to per- 
mit himself to be degraded to an oppressor of his fellow 
citizens by having a crown put on his head, this country would 
now have His Majesty Washington the Xth to worship in 
place of His Excellency Ulysses the 1st ; and the German 
subject would have no need of perjury any more to remain 
here too what he was at home. Possibly, the progress made 
ahead of England might then have consisted only in the intro- 
duction of a representative hand-shake on particular occa- 
sions, for instance, at the opening of the parliament, that 
of course would have had its house of lords, or planters, 
and its house of commons, or business men. But since king- 
ship failed, because of Washington's honorableness, and the 
radical spirit of a Paine, a Jefferson, and others had taken 
care to spread democratic ideas, an expedient was discovered 
in the establishment of a kind of constitutional monarchy, 
with the name of a republic, in which the hereditary monarch 
was supplied by an elected president ; the upper house, by 
the senate ; and the lower house, by the house of repre- 



27 



sentatives. The whole was mut. mut., an improved copy of 
constitutional monarchy, while its chief evils, separate execu- 
tive power, the representative system, and its embodyment 
in two chambers, were retained. 



THE PRESIDENCY AS A SEPARATE EXECUTIVE 

POWER. 

There are but two systems of government founded upon 
logically consistent principles, — absolute monarchy, and 
absolute democrac}^. 

Every form of government suspended mid way between 
these two opposites is an untenable compromise, and must 
sooner or later fall back into one, or, moving forward, be 
changed into the other. 

True, absolute monarchy recognizes no rights of the 
ruled, and unites all powers, the law making, the executive, 
and the judiciary also, in the person of the monarch. Since 
the development of mankind however tends towards democ- 
racy, and absolute monarchy can neither suppress this tend- 
ency for any length of time, nor offer anything in place of it, 
it has been compelled in the course of time to make more or 
less concessions to it ; and as, on the other hand, democracy 
was not yet strong and developed enough to render absolute 
monarchy incapable of doing harm, by abolishing the whole 
monarchical system, it was content with those concessions 
which consisted in a ' division of power'. This was the origin 
of so-called ' constitutional monarchies'. Since the times of 
Montesquieu, Europe had held the belief that in them had 
been discovered the political philosopher's stone, while in 



28 



truth they are nothing else but the deceitful compromises 
of two opponents who affirm that they are laboring for a com- 
mon aim, while, according to their different interests, they 
must always combat each other till one of them succeeds in 
annihilating the other ; and since in the 'division of powers' 
the really decisive one, the executive power, armed with the 
sword, and in possession of the public treasury, was left in 
the hands of monarchy, democracy, of course, will naturally 
always have the worst of it in that struggle, unless, which is 
barely the case, the chief tool of the ruling power, the army, 
throws up its allegiance to its superior. 

In spite of this plain defectiveness and danger, neces- 
sarily existing in the very nature of constitutional monarchy, 
and the division of power, the same order of things was 
transferred to the republic. It was supposed that a great 
difference was being constituted if, under the name of presi- 
dent, a king was elected instead of being inherited, if his gov- 
ernment was limited to a certain time instead of being suf- 
fered during his life, and if the body politic was called a 
republic instead of a monarclry. Only the name, however, 
had been changed : in the main, the old order of things was 
retained. It was acknowledged that all power proceeded 
from the people, but one had forgotten to make sure, also, 
of the power remaining with the people. True to the old 
' constitutional' superstition of the necessity of a 'division 
of powers', France 'put the chief force, the executive power, 
having command of the sword and the public treasury, which 
she had just wrested from a perjured king, into the hands of 
a perjured president, and then felt astonished on discovering 
one fine day to find the new republic strangled, and upon its 
coffin the president turned into an emperor. 

But why do we speak of the French? They only fol- 
lowed the example set them by the greatest republic in the 
world, the North American. We only spoke of them first 
because they first put into decisive practice the example set 



29 



by North America. It will be the question now whether this 
country shall heed the Warning others have given it at their 
expense. 

At the time when the North American colonies renounced 
their allegiance to England, the republican spirit, as we have 
mentioned before, was but little developed within their bord- 
ers. They threw off the monarchical yoke not because it was 
monarchical, but because it pressed heavily on them. Had 
some English prince resided in the colonies at the time, who 
had sustained them in their opposition against the oppres- 
sion of the mother country, they would immediately have 
placed him at their head, and later proclaimed him for the 
hereditary ruler. In default of a candidate for hereditary mon- 
archy, they founded an elective monarchy. They attempted 
to manage by a mixture of monarchical and democratic insti- 
tutions, at whose head they placed a president. Had they at 
that time been blessed with a Tyler or a Pierce, a Buchanan 
or a Johnson, they would probably have thought of establish- 
ing the executive power in some other shape ; but since a 
Washington was at their head, they did not suspect that with 
a president they only set up a king in a dress-coat, in whose 
pockets decrees of usurpation and coups d'etat might be con- 
cealed just as well as in the pockets of a Louis Napoleon. 

The constitution of the United States establishes that 
the president is to be the executor of the laws proceeding 
from congress. But, neither constitutional nor legal regula- 
tions have ever yet answered their purpose where they were 
not directly sustained by material power, but rather opposed 
by a power capable of maintaining itself more Or less inde- 
pendently from them. If the executor holds more power 
than the law-giver, the master is dependent on the servant, 
and the servant always tempted to make himself the master. 
In the very nature of things, it is only a matter of course 
that an executive power endowed with equal rights, and com- 
pelled to exist by the side of the law-making, will submit to 



30 



the latter only with reluctance ; that, supplied with all power 
to act, and at all times called on to act, it should feel superior 
to that political power which is only called on at certain 
times to deliberate and conclude ; that, being the object of 
universal attention, the center of all political action, the organ 
of all national manifestations, and the source of all marks 
of power, it should ascribe to itself a higher importance, and 
more authority, than to an assembly, which, although it is 
intended to represent the people, has yet no head whose 
action is of any importance, and no means of direct mani- 
festation ; that, finally, in the full sense of its power and 
importance, it must be easily tempted to abuse that power by 
opposition to the powerless legislative branch, in order to 
carry out its own will, or perform acts of usurpation. 

It is a vain undertaking to attempt to effectually pre- 
vent such danger by particular legal restrictions. If such 
restrictions go so far as to njake the executive branch com- 
pletely powerless to do harm, fetter it, so to speak, hand and 
foot; they, also, make it powerless to perform its office, 
render it, therefore, not only perfectly superfluous but even 
harmful through this powerlessness ; does it, however, retain 
in its own hands the means of performing its office, — among 
which may be chiefly numbered the command of the army 
and navy, the management of the public treasury, the power 
to appoint and remove officials, to have the republic repre- 
sented abroad, etc. — it thereby again possesses the means of 
manifesting its own will, and becoming dangerous to the 
republic A. Johnson furnished the practical proof of the 
uselessness of the experiment to deprive a dangerous execu- 
tive power of the abilit} 7- of doing harm, by restricting laws 
on particular occasions. This danger, however, rises to its 
greatest hight if at extraordinary times, particularly in case 
of a war, all the powers of the country are placed at the dis- 
posal of the executive, when his judgment becomes the only 
leading, his will the only conclusive, one, — the fate of the 



31 



whole people, in short, is put into his hands, and the whole 
republic learns to submit to the decision, obey the command, 
at the sign of a single ma a. 

Before we speak of the warning experience has already 
given us on this hand, it is necessary to first glance at the 
privileged position assigned by the constitution itself to the 
executive power. 

Already at his election it becomes apparent that the 
president occupies an exceptional position by his being elected 
not by the people direct, but by electors not bound to the 
will of the people. 

After his election, he holds command not only of the 
army and navy, but also of all the militia in the country, in 
case it is called out. He has not the right to declare war, 
but if he desires it, he can easily bring it on with any foreign 
power through his secretary of State, or, as Mr. Buchanan 
showed us, encourage and passively prepare for it in the 
country. 

By the royal right of pardon, his favor is placed above 
law and justice. Dispensation from punishment should pro- 
ceed only from the same power that dictated the penalty, that 
is from the law-giver, the people. 

In concluding treaties with foreign powers, he is depend- 
ent on the consent of the senate ; but, as Mr. Seward showed 
us, it is not difficult for him to force treaties secretly prepared 
upon the senate as well as the house of representatives in 
such a manner that they can not be rejected any more with- 
out compromising the government. General Grant, too, gave 
proof by his St. Domingo business what embarrassments and 
dangers may arise to the country from the right of the uncon- 
trollable executive power to take the initiative step in foreign 
affairs. 

He nominates the judges of the supreme court. He then, 
who is the first to have the temptation offered the power 
given him to violate the constitution, may make his creatures 



32 

members of that court, whose office it is to decide upon viola- 
tions of the constitution. Nay, more, he nominates in the 
judge of the supreme court the president of that tribunal 
which, in case of impeachment, is to judge himself! A right 
of this kind, where the possible criminal nominates his own 
judges in advance, is an anomaly that borders on a mon- 
strosity. 

He is to execute the laws of congress : he himself, how- 
ever, is endowed with the power to make them laws first. 
Without his signature, the laws of congress are only proposi- 
tions ; and if he refuses his signature, two-thirds of a legisla- 
tive body of several hundred members are required to vote 
down the veto of a single man. Through these, altogether 
anti-democratic regulations, the constitution itself attributes 
to him not only greater importance and power than to the 
representatives of the people, but also, from the very outset 
brings about a conflict between them and him by first making 
a legislator of the executive, and then putting him into the 
position of being obliged to execute laws he first rejected by 
his veto. 

An other ascendancy over congress is given to him by 
the power (borrowed from constitutional kings) of not only 
CO nvening the representatives of the people but also adjourn- 
ing them for any length of time (in case the two houses can 
not agree upon the term of adjournment). 

All these exorbitant privileges of the president, all 
derived from the ' constitutional monarchies' of Europe, form, 
as almost insurmountable obstacles practically, the most glar- 
ing contrast to the provision according to which congress 
may call him to account, and summon him before its bar. 
The conception of accountableness presupposes decided subor- 
dinaiion, the dependence of him who is called to account upon 
the one who is to call him to account. After all that we have 
shown, however, it appears that congress is more dependent 
on the president than the president on congress. The presi- 



33 



dent has the means of power, congress only words ; he may 
act, congress can only talk ; he sends the legislative body to 
the capitol, and, if it so happens, home again : the legislative 
body must go to him 'at the other end of the avenue'. He 
has a thousand opportunities of showing or refusing some 
favor to the legislators ; the legislators may at the most, in 
rare cases, refuse one of his creatures an appointment. Not 
only in the interest of their proteges but in their own interests 
they are thrown upon his favor, and many of them expect 
some office from him when their congressional term has 
expired. Under such circumstances, his accountableness 
before congress will not rob even the worst president of his 
night's rest, particularly since he is still further protected by 
the constitution through the provision that the representa- 
tives of the people have only the right to impeach him ; and 
that two-thirds of the representatives of the States are 
required to convict him. 

Now, if anything else were yet needed to encourage the 
president in any overbearing sense of the fulness of his 
power, and the -most extended use he can possibly make of it, 
it is the hazardous arrangement which, according to the consti- 
tution, leaves him for nine months in the year, during the 
adjournment of congress, alone without any control at the 
head of the government. He may do or leave undone what- 
ever he pleases during this long period of time. Congress, 
unless particular provisions to that effect have been made, 
has no right as well as no opportunity to oppose him, — in 
short, the country during nine months in the year is resist- 
lessly at the mercy of the autocrat of the ' white house'. The 
Mexican constitution attempted to remedy this evil by estab- 
lishing a permanent congressional deputation, whose office it 
is to watch over the executive during adjournment, and who 
also has the power of convening congress ; but even this 
expedient, which may serve in ordinary times, can not on 
extraordinary occasions do away with the dangers necessarily 



34 



arising from an executive power which is separate from the 
legislative. 

If these dangers were ever brought close to the American 
people, it was during and after the war of the rebellion. If 
we imagine the case that in the year 1860, or even so late as 
1864, an A. Johnson had succeeded in making himself presi- 
dent by the same deceptions that made him vice-president, 
we shall not doubt for a moment that today the North Ameri- 
can republic would no longer exist, — that slavery would rule 
with an iron rod over its whole territory. What though would 
have been the essential cause of this calamity? Not the 
baseness of this A. Johnson, but the position in which he 
would have been placed, a position where the whole power 
of the republic would have been entrusted to the hands of one 
single, uncontrollable man. Fortunately, A. Johnson came 
into possession of power only after the war was at an end. 
A. Lincoln did not make use of his position for the subjuga- 
tion of the republic through the slave-holders, but he, too, 
showed the people plainly enough in what manner he might 
have made use of it. The preponderance of the executive 
power which appeared already in so suspicious a manner 
under Pierce, and rose to a regime of unscrupulous brutality 
under Buchanan, under Lincoln, favored by the concentration 
of the immense forces of war, assumed almost the shape of 
an absolute, unlimited power. Not only friends of the rebels, 
but also many sincere friends of the republic, alreacty at that 
time dubiously shook their heads over the possibility of a 
coup aVetat. But if already a former rail-splitter, a flat-boat- 
man, who was set up as a model of simplicity, and who 
enjoyed the full confidence of his party, could, when in the 
presidential chair, give rise to the idea of a coup d'etat, this 
may well be to us the most serious inducement to examine 
closely the dangerousness of a position which gives to a single 
man command over a million of soldiers. Can, aye, must it 
not encourage a treasonable occupant to some outrage against 



35 



the republic ? "Who would have the power to save the repub- 
lic, if in some new war some fortunate general, having the 
army on his side, occupied the 'white house', and undertook 
to give a king to the people, dazzled by the glories of war, 
change 'His Excellency' into 'His Majesty'? Did not, even 
after the war of the rebellion was ended, when by the dis- 
banding of the army the power of the president was reduced 
to a minimum, Lincoln's successor throw the country repeat- 
edly into disgust and agitation b} 7 the excited expectation 
of a coup d'etat? Did not his secretary of State, with auto- 
cratic overbearing, put to the people the alternative of ' presi- 
dent or king ' ? and who can assert that the expectations of a 
coup d'etat would have been disappointed if the courage of 
the usurper had been equal to his desire, or if congress, by 
an impeachment, had put to the test the threat contained in 
his last message ? 

The sole weapon offered by the constitution against the 
abuse of the executive power, which already now yields 
nothing to any king on the face of the earth, in power and 
influence, is impeachment. But this sole weapon not only 
proved itself unserviceable at the very first attempt to put it 
in use, but was even received by him against whom it was 
turned with contempt and menaces. This attempt justified 
the worst fears in regard to the powerlessness of the legisla- 
tive body over the executive ; it showed us how far a presi- 
dent of this republic may carry his insolence, his want of 
principles, his arbitrariness, his lawlessness, his usurpations, 
without being called to account for it ; it made manifest how 
much harm, how much ill treatment, how much contempt a 
republican people is obliged to suffer from a so-called public 
servant without being able to employ any lawful means to 
remedy the evil ; it caused it to appear that in practice the 
president is as 'inviolable' as a constitutional king, while he 
has not, like the latter, a responsible ministry about him ; it 
not only justified A. Johnson in repeating all the sins he had 



36 



committed before, but encouraged him to even overstep yet 
the bounds within which he had so far kept ; and finally it fur- 
nished a precedent to every one of his successors, which from 
the very outset must deprive him of all scruples as to any 
assumption of power that might go too far. If the deeds of 
A. Johnson did not bring about his removal from the 4 white 
house', we can only think of such acts of violence yet, for 
sufficient causes for the deposition of a president, as would 
make him at the same time the all-powerful master of his 
judges. The French national assembly, too, at length con- 
demned L. Napoleon for high treason, but the condemned 
man sent his judges to prison. But, even if none of A. John- 
son's successors should overstep the bounds wherein he may 
abuse the powers of his office with impunity, the bounds con- 
ceded to them by the vote on the impeachment, this alone 
would be sufficient to render all constitutional guaranties 
worthless, for it needs only two successive Johnsons to ruin 
the republic, even without a coup d'etat, unless, by the aboli- 
tion of the presidency, all Johnsons are made impossible. 

The presidency is more than any other office an office 
of confidence. Its dangerousness can only be covered for 
the time being by the complete justification of the confidence 
placed at his election in the occupant. But the majority of 
the presidents we have had so far did not justify the confi- 
dence placed in them, which speaks more for the corrupting 
influence of the office than gives proof that the occupants are 
unworthy of confidence. This experience should teach us 
anyhow that in a democratic body politic, where 'eternal 
vigilance' (that is, eternal mistrust) ' is the price of freedom', 
personal confidence should never take the place of constitu- 
tional guaranties. The confidence of the people must always 
become injurious after a while if they grant more power than 
they retain themselves to put a stop to the abuse of this con- 
fidence. The best constitution is certainly the one which 
makes confidence in the holder of the public power as super- 



37 



fluous as possible, by rendering any abuse of it as difficult as 
possible. 

It is impossible, as has been shown above, to attain this 
object, and at the same time retain the presidency. But, even 
were it possible, without taking from him the means of carry- 
ing out the duties of his office, to so control the powers of the 
president that he should no longer be able to rise above the 
laws, or feel tempted to undertake any. act of violence, the 
office would yet be incompatible with the weal of the republic, 
because of the president's position as the very center of party 
struggles, and a source of corruption. 

When the presidency was established, it was regarded 
as a means of executing the will of the people, and of pro- 
tecting the common interests. In this spirit, the first occu- 
pants of the office carried on the administration. Gradually 
it came to be regarded more and more as a means of satisfy- 
ing the ambition of the candidates, and procuring for the 
Leaders of the party that secured the victory to them the 
advantages at the disposal of the president. In former times, 
the victor had the honor of promoting the interests of the 
people ; at a later period, nobody was abashed at proclaiming 
and carrying out the shameful maxim of 'to the conqueror 
belong the spoils'. The 'father of the republic' changed 
into the fathers of the booty-hunters. Principles that formerly 
determined the formation of parties afterwards served as bait 
for the voters, — the chief motive of the leaders and wire- 
pullers was booty. The presidency became the aim of every 
ambitious politician ; to attain his aim, he was not only obliged 
to accommodate his principles to circumstances, but also to 
engage himself to every associate who might possibly have 
furthered his interests, and when the aim was attained, he 
was compelled to appoint to the offices on whose administra- 
tion depends the weal of the country not those who might 
serve the people best, but those who would serve him best. 
Thus the whole struggle for the highest office in the republic 



38 



became a chase for booty, and a traffic where regard for the 
public weal was set aside for the sake of personal interests, 
and where intrigue and corruption served as the most effectual 
means ; and when the struggle was over, and the victor in 
possession, there instantly began preparations to have the 
whole repeated. The whole power, and the immense pat- 
ronage at the disposal of the victor, were now employed as 
means to secure his position for the next term also, or at least 
to maintain his party in possession of the booty. Thus the 
chief activity of politicians, which should be devoted to the 
public weal, consists from year's end to year's end in the pur- 
suit of, and the struggle for, personal advantages, whose 
inexhaustible store-house is the ' white house '. To the ' white 
house' everything is drawn, from the 'white house' every- 
thing proceeds, and even the capitol is occasionally changed 
from a hall for the discussion of the interests of the people 
into a head-quarters of the struggle for the 'white house*. 
The 'white house* is the high school of corruption, as it is 
the seat of treason. Whoever shares the opinion that a 
republic can only live through the virtue of its citizens must 
believe this virtue capable of superhuman firmness, if he does 
not object to having it put to the test by the institution of 
the presidency. How many hundred millions in money the 
presidency has already cost the American people is difficult to 
calculate ; how much though the masses and their politicians 
have lost by it in public morals and genuine republican spirit 
appears daily everywhere in the most frightful manner. The 
institution of the presidency exerts so pernicious an influence 
that it becomes even questionable whether the president does 
not do more mischief before his election than after his inau- 
guration, — for every campaign is a school for all the lies, 
intrigues, and evil passions that ambitious politicians, hungry 
for booty, can possibly make use of; and the whole people is 
obliged to pass through this school without perceiving what 
a corrupting influence it exerts on public morals. 



39 



If the constitution of the United States should in future 
serve other nations for a model, this will not at least be the 
case, we trust, in regard to the institution of the executive 
power. When in 1848 the Swiss republic altered its consti- 
tution, it retained it is true two defective institutions which 
it shares with this country, that is, the constitution of the 
States (cantons) , and the two-chamber system ; but it took 
good care not to adopt the American institution of the presi- 
dency. According to its new constitution, its executive power 
consists in a confederate council of seven members, which, 
like the confederate court, is elected for three years, by the 
confederate assembly, from all the eligible citizens of the 
country. The members of this council elect their own presi- 
dent every year. The same person can not be president two 
years in succession. The council has no veto, and no right 
to grant either amnesty or pardon, which power is reserved 
to the legislative body. In case public safety demands the 
enrollment of troops, the council is obliged to convene the 
confederate assembly so soon as the number of troops to be 
enrolled exceeds 2000 men, or the enrollment lasts over three 
weeks. 

All these arrangements give proof of the recognition 
of the dangers attending an executive power when it holds 
too much authority, and is exercised by one person. They 
make the executive power directly dependent on the legisla- 
tive, and a sort of ministry to the confederate assembly ; and 
tins, the subordination of the executive to the law-making 
power, or the union of the two, is the great point. To divide 
them, place them on a footing of equality, or permit them to 
oppose each other, is just as illogical as it is undemocratic. 
In a democratic commonwealth, all power proceeds from the 
people, and just as little as the people themselves divide may 
the power divide that proceeds from them, and acts as their 
agent. The people are politically a unit, as a single individual 
is such ; and as no individual has his ideas and resolutions 



40 



carried out by a power separate from and outside of himself, 
so little do the people require a separate executive authority 
for the resolutions and laws they cause their legislative organs 
to adopt and establish. As the legislative body is the organ 
of the people, so must the executive power be the tool of the 
legislative. 



THE EX-PRESIDENT. 

An American knows no higher aim than to grow rich, or 
become president. Many, though, would certainly check 
their ambition if they had a clear picture in time of the con- 
trast presented by the quiet farewell from the ' white house ' 
at the expiration of the term to the loud triumph with which 
the fortunate candidate took possession of it. A mistress 
once adored and then deserted offers no sadder image of bitter 
vicissitude than a president for four years worshiped like an 
idol, and then perhaps sent home with imprecations. Even 
the worst president might after his dismissal disarm hatred 
by pity. Let us fancy the sun, who today shines upon all, 
and is admired by all, endowed with consciousness, and then 
tomorrow extinguished, to see his place taken by some former 
planet, and we shall have the picture of a man who today is 
the head of all heads, in the possession of all power, the object 
of the attention of all creatures, and then must suddenly go 
his wa}^ as an ordinary mortal, silent and unnoticed, betake 
himself off almost like a dismissed servant, in the midst of 
the noise and the shouts that accompany his successor to the 
throne he has just left. In truth, there is something of cruelty 
in this change of presidents. A king in the purple is at least 



41 



fortunate enough never to see his successor, as such : he 
remains the worshiped king until he becomes unconscious 
food for worms, and the ' love ' of his subjects, as well as the 
'loyalty* of his servants, accompanies him until he reaches 
that point . where love and lo3^alty, and power and glory, 
become entirely indifferent to him. But one of these kings 
in a dress-coat is obliged to see all the splendors in which he 
played a chief part suddenly change while he is yet in the 
possession of full consciousness, and must disappear in a cor- 
ner behind the scenes as one who has no longer any business 
there ; after he has become quite accustomed to the luxurious 
table of rulership, and his whole system has become filled and 
satiated with the rare dishes of ambition, he now sees himself 
suddenly ordered away from the table, forced to content him- 
self again with the old, ordinary, frugal food with which every 
good-for-nothing among the 'people' keeps body and soul 
together. The presidents that were form a particular, and 
certainly not enviable, class of people ; haunted all through 
life by the wants and pretensions engendered by their former 
prominent position, without the means and the chance to 
gratify them, they are a kind of artificially-produced geniuses 
who, after the expiration of their term, belong to the 'unac- 
knowledged', and then suffer to the end of their days from 
the withdrawal of the tribute of admiration due them, and 
formerly promptly paid. Even among the Romans there was 
but one Cincinnatus. Among all the great men that survive 
themselves, the kings in dress-coats are the most pitiable, 
because their living death overtakes them so sudden^, and 
the neglect that succeeds it shows them with such cutting 
clearness that all the demonstrations of honor to which they 
have accustomed themselves were meant only for their posi- 
tion, and the marks of favor proceeding from it not for them- 
selves, and as a tribute of respect to their personal worth ; 
and how sharply must the contrast to the former homage be 
felt by a genius who, like the illustrious Johnson, hears 



42 



already before he takes leave the moral kicks preparing for 
him, that wait for his appearance outside the door. We can 
not really find much fault with him that, at the very last he yet 
made use of, we ma} r say the hour before execution, would eat 
his fill in an extra treat, and take something with him on the 
way that would make his transit easier; and. this the excel- 
lent Johnson did, with all his power, when he was on the 
eve of taking his departure from the 'white house'. He kept 
a quantity of bills that congress had tired itself over in sol- 
emn discussions in his pocket, so they were nothing any more 
but so much waste paper ; he left his enemies a sermon in 
which a four years' crop of gall was deposited ; on the other 
hand, he liberated his best friends and brothers in spirit, that 
is, all the criminals his pardon could reach, the last traitors, 
forgers, pirates, and assassins of Lincoln included, in order 
to set them upon the villainous company that had not elected 
him again j and thus he departed, so to speak, with his tongue 
put out, and turned towards congress and mankind and his 
successor with an infernal, or goblin-like, "Aha!" That is 
the revenge of an ex-president. First, the presidency fur- 
nishes its occupant with all the means of corruption and mis- 
use of power to maintain himself m office, but if he has not 
succeeded in this, it furnishes him with the means of making 
even his departure, which the whole people had the greatest 
desire to see, as pernicious as possible. Of a president it may 
be said, — he is an evil before he exists, an evil when he 
comes, an evil when he is there, and even an- evil when he 
goes again. 



THE PRESIDENT AND PARTY ORGANIZATION. 

'In republics parties are a necessity'. This phrase is 
everywhere repeated as an axiom, and Solon is here quoted 



43 



for an authority. Solon's precept, however, to join some 
party in the State only means that the citizens of the State 
are to take an interest in its affairs, that they are to lend their 
cooperation in the decision of questions concerning the public 
weal, and are not to leave it to those holding power, or to 
the politicians by profession, or the demagogues, only. In 
countries where the unquestioning obedience of good subjects 
is the order of the day, for instance, in Herr Bismark's 
1 empire ', the law of Solon would be considered a sort of high 
treason : there no party is allowed to exist save that of those 
who hold the power. In a republic, however, 6*bedience to it 
is the first condition required to maintain liberty, and secure 
the rule of the people. Not to join a party here means to 
inactively surrender up the power of the citizens, and, under 
certain circumstances, it may mean the betra} T al of the 
republic. 

The question is now, however, to understand Solon's 
precept correctly, and not through a deceptive, mistaken 
interpretation permit it to be employed for false purposes, 
rhe taking of sides is in general the duty of the citizen ; but 
it may be still a higher political duty to take sides against the 
parties. The taking of sides must not be so interpreted as 
though it were a duty to support one of the existing parties. 
In the question which of two opposite parties is to be sup- 
ported, the citizen must proceed from the supposition that 
one of them represents, according to his conviction, right, 
the other wrong. If he holds them both to be in the wrong, 
however, it is not his duty to join either, but rather to con- 
tend against both. Now, the chief point is whether standing 
parties, as they exist in this country, are necessary at all ; 
whether they do not even exert a pernicious influence. How, 
then, if it should be proved that standing parties are to be 
combated and abolished just as well as standing armies ? 

In the question of taking sides in a democratic republic, 
we must originally start from the single, independent indi- 



44 



vidual, and entirely ignore the existence of parties already 
formed. Let us imagine now a commonwealth of twenty mil- 
lions of such individuals, none of whom are yet compromised 
or bound by participation in any organization. Let some 
public question arise in this commonwealth, — the proposal 
for some regulation in the State, the draft of a law, a propo- 
sition concerning the constitution. The question is thoroughly 
discussed in meetings as well as by the press. The result is 
that these twenty millions take sides individually, according 
to their convictions and their interests, for and against the 
question, without an organized party, and that the will of the 
people is manifested freely and honestly, without secondary 
considerations. The citizens give their vote for or against 
the question under consideration, but. not for or against the 
•party that represents or combats it. Let us now imagine a 
second, entirely different question brought up after the one 
just disposed of, and the same manner of decision through 
independent individuals, perhaps millions who occupied the 
same position before now oppose each other as enemies. The 
result, however, is the same, — a taking of sides, without any 
binding-party, and the true expression of the will of the peo- 
ple on the question under consideration, without any regard 
to party advantage or part}^ disadvantage. Through a pro- 
ceeding of this kind, an independent taking of sides, without 
closed parties, we should approach also as near as possible to 
that which we call a representation of the minority. Had the 
controverted questions, however, been disposed of through 
party organizations already existing instead of through inde- 
pendent individuals, the decision would have resulted quite 
differently. Instead of the reasons for or against the matter 
to be decided, a looking to the advantage or disadvantage 
of the party would have turned the scale ; the single individu- 
als would have permitted their votes to be dictated by the 
command of the party, instead of by the command of their 
own independent reason ; and not the spirit of truth and 



45 



right, but party spirit would have been the leading one. Even 
if we assume that it would not be well possible to always 
maintain the independence of individuals, even when no 
organized parties are in existence, that in many cases it might 
be sacrificed to impure influences, and might not entirely 
exclude corruption, it yet would certainly never be endangered 
in whole masses by the powers and means of an organized 
party, nor paralyzed by the habit of following where others 
lead. The cases where it should succumb would remain sin- 
gle ones, would be of private nature, and could not on every 
occasion be repeated in the same manner, while an organized, 
permanent party continually practices them. 

The great defect of standing parties, a defect brought 
about by this origin, and their striving after the possession 
of power, lies in this, that their chief aim is rulership, perma- 
nent rulership. Although originally perhaps first called into 
being b}' the purpose of carrying out certain principles or 
measures, they were 3 r et, as bodies politic have so far been 
organized, always obliged to direct their chief efforts towards 
the overthrow of existing powers, so as not only to take 
authority into their own hands, but also retain it by every 
possible means. They attempted, therefore, to perfect their 
organization as much as possible, strengthened the ties of 
principle by the ties of corruption, and by discipline and 
intimidation made it a duty to join their ranks, while origi- 
nally their members had come to them of their own free will. 
In this manner they came to gradually forget the aim that 
had called them into being, and to regard the continuance 
of their rule as the chief aim, to which every other was sub- 
ordinated. The chief aim of their rule, however, became — 
'booty' ; and when this purpose is gained, the result is wont 
to be that they continue adding to corruption and the abuse 
of power till the measure overflows, and then an other party 
takes their place to play the same game over again. Thus 
the masses called the people are being continually drawn 



46 



hither and thither in two organizations, to both of which they 
are continually lending their support, without in fact having 
much to say in either. 

To remedy this evil there is no other means but to sus- 
tain a free taking of sides, to liberate it from the ban of 
organized parties, and reduce it as much as possible to the 
independence of individuals. The means of gaining this pur- 
pose, however, is to change that organization of power which 
makes it possible for one particular party to hold the ruler- 
ship and its possession the chief aim of the party. Here the 
rule of this or that party is decided by a single act, on which 
all efforts are concentrated, — the struggle for the executive 
power, the presidential election. The result of this one elec- 
tion makes so and so many millions of the 'people', calling 
themselves 'democrats' or 'republicans', or rather their lead- 
ers, masters of the republic for four years at least. Let them 
do as much mischief as they please, their rule for these four 
years is assured, and by means of this rule their party keeps 
together, only anxious to prolong it as much as possible, 
while that portion of the people not belonging to this party 
has no means of manifesting itself. Would this condition be 
possible if ruling politics were not based on a power estab- 
lished for so and so many years, but were continually under 
the living influence of the people themselves? Could one 
party, as such, secure to itself exclusive power, if this power 
were exercised through organs or agents, determined in their 
actions at all times by every portion of the people ? In a 
word, could the present party organizations, a public nui- 
sance, continue in existence if the presidency and the senate 
were abolished, and their place were taken by a permanent 
assembly of agents of the people, that may be influenced by 
their electors at all times, and replaced b} 7 others? With 
such an arrangement, there would be no fixed center of power, 
of authority, and of patronage from which a standing party 
might be directed, and kept together. Politics would origin- 



47 



ate from below, not from above ; they would not be the fixed 
business of a party, but would accommodate themselves each 
time to the will of the people ; they would not be dictated by 
one portion of the country to an other, but independently 
influenced by every electoral district ; and the taking of sides 
would change accordiug to the. questions each time under 
consideration, instead of being pointed out for all cases by a 
party programme. Now there are only ' democrats ' or l repub- 
licans ' in congress. Let the present support and center of 
party organization be destroyed, and the national assembly 
taking the place of congress will consist only of independent 
members, bound to each other by no party tie, and depend- 
ent only on their constituents. In this, it is true, a majority 
will decide that in chief questions shall be united by like con- 
victions ; but this majority is no fixed one, formed only for 
party interests, one that was organized from the very outset ; 
it may change just according to the questions brought up for 
discussion, and can only exist by conformity with its inde- 
pendent electoral circles, that have not united for the main- 
tenance of ruler ship, or the division of booty, but chosen the 
representatives of their principles and interests, according to 
their individual convictions. 



THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM. 

Still more dependent than congress from the president, 
who ought to be its executing servant, is the so-called master 
of both, the people, from congress, that ought to represent 
it. The right of representation originated in Europe through 
a compromise of monarchy with democracy : in America it 



48 



amounts actually to an abolition of democracy. Here repre- 
sentation does not mean the making good of the claims of 
the people through their attorneys opposite a power above and 
outside of the people, generally designated as the 'crown' ; 
no, here it means the surrendering up of all rights of the 
people, all the intelligence of the people, and all the power 
of the people into the hands of the authorized agents, who, 
by means of their mandate, monopolize the whole business 
of the management, and the administration of the State. 
Here the representatives are, so to speak, the guardians 
through whose election the people make minors of them- 
selves, and put themselves under guardianship. The election 
of a representative, which the people regards as an act of the 
manifestation of its will, is only an act of resignation. After 
the election, no people exists any more ; for a certain period 
of time it is entirely done away with, defenceless against 
and without a will towards its own representative. May it 
manifest to him its displeasure through the press, or in meet- 
ings, or Irv any other means, — practically, it has given up 
its sovereignty to him, and it depends on the representative 
only, whether he is inclined to pay airy attention to the pro- 
test of his constituents or not. What he who is elected con- 
cludes, not what they who elect desire, is law. He commands, 
the}' must obey ; and whoever has ceded his right must not 
expect to have as much regard paid him as one still in the 
full possession of it. 

Strange to say, some cases have occurred where repre- 
senting sovereigns were requested by the represented ones 
to resign their positions, because of bad conduct. (We call 
to mind, for instance, Messrs. Doolittle and Yates.) What 
was the result ? The gentlemen so requested each time refused 
to obe} T ; and they were right. The} T might have answered, 
— u You sovereign at home have resigned by my election ; 
how do you arrive at the logic of believing you have the 
right to request me to resign? I am you, and you are nothing 



49 



so long as I am. So long as I exist as your representative, 
you do not exist ; and whoever does not exist, has no rights. 
I refuse your request as an absurd piece of arrogance. Pos- 
sess yourself in patience till, after the expiration of my term, 
you receive back existence, and with it the right of ' abdicat- 
ing' again in favor of an other sovereign." If congress, in 
company with the president, concluded to empty the pockets 
of the sovereign people to the last cent, for the benefit of its 
representatives, the sovereign people,.unless they were willing 
to overthrow their much-praised constitution, would have no 
means of resistance ; the}' would be obliged according to the 
constitution to la} 7 down their last cent on the altar of the 
representative system until that period had arrived when 
they might choose new guardians for themselves. This would 
be a 'legally' irrefutable result of the representative system. 
Some time ago the London Spectator observed that the 
people of the United States had outgrown their constitution. 
It would be more appropriate to say they were grown into 
their constitution. This may anyhow be said of any people 
who through their constitutions established powers that are 
obstacles to the continual exercise and direct manifestation 
of their will. Constitutions of such a character are all more 
or less straight-jackets, and the most absurd straight- jackets 
are the 'representative' ones. To comprehend the whole 
absurdity of the conception of 'representation', we must join 
it to the conception of the 'sovereign people'. The people, 
it is said, is everything,-— it is the State, and the aim of the 
State ; it is the power, and the sovereign ; and this every- 
thing, this. State, this sovereign, is (consider the whole con- 
tradiction of the phrase) represented ; and towards whom ? 
Towards itself! Represented not only in the sense that 
agents act in its name, no, the agents take the place of the 
sovereign who empowers them, they assume his position, 
they become sovereign themselves for a certain time, while 
the sovereign they 'represent' retains neither a will nor 



50 



rights, neither authorit} r nor the power to take the initiative, 
— in short, does not legally exist at all any more. The peo- 
ple elects its " representatives ' not to give them business to 
execute, but to itself disappear for a time, for the benefit of 
these representatives. After the election, the people is nothing 
any more : its servants are everything. The people is only 
the master in order to make its servants its masters ; it only 
possesses rights to yield them up to those whom it should 
regard only as tools in the exercise of these rights. 

The necessary consequence of this preposterous relation 
is an inconsiderateness towards, and a contempt of, the peo- 
ple, in the capitol as in the 'white house', and among the 
governors and legislatures of the single States, which no 
longer shrinks from any arbitrary act, nor any corruption. 
Do we perceive in a single one of these gentlemen in con- 
gress, or in the legislatures, that they regard themselves as 
tools to carry out the will of others, as agents for the dis- 
patch of the business of others? Do they show the least 
regard for the many-headed sovereign when they squander 
his money, waste time, neglect business, raise their salary 
and their mileage, supply themselves with stationery articles, 
retain their shameful franking privilege, squander the public 
lands, apply themselves to corruption with the l representa- 
tive' at the other end of the avenue, or with the lobby, 
adjourn for weeks over the 'holy days', devote all their ener- 
gies to presidential intrigues instead of to the interests of 
the county? Could they act more sovereignly and more 
regardlessry if the ' sovereign ' they ' represent ' had entirely 
disappeared from the earth ? 

The disadvantage, however, which accrues to the people 
from the representative sjstem consists not only in this that 
it makes their representatives careless of their desires and 
interests, but in something that proves much worse in the 
course of time, the fact that it accustoms the people to the 
most patient, most apathetic endurence of all evils the rulers 



51 



of their fortunes may prepare for them. Submitting to it 
'according to the constitution', that after the election it prac- 
tically does not exist any more as a sovereign power, the 
people, according to the constitution, suffers everything its 
chosen representatives do and leave undone, so that in fact 
its political activity, which should never slacken, is reduced 
to the act of election only, and it learns to seek in this mere 
act of election all its aid and comfort. Without this thought- 
less habit, and this apathy, it would be quite inexplicable 
how accusations like those of Mr. Washburne, who repre- 
sented his colleagues in general as the greatest swiudlers, or 
those of Senator Sprague, who calls the congress composed 
of corrupt lawyers, and men of wealth the destruction of the 
republic, should remain without any consequences ; it would 
be inexplicable how the people should continually suffer with- 
out serious opposition the perfectly gigantic corruptions whose 
mediator congress is, and particularly the unprincipled squan- 
dering of the public lands. Whoever read only the speech 
in which Mr. Julian of Indiana on the 21st of January, 1871, 
in the house of representatives reproached congress with the 
crimes committed by throwing away hundreds of millions of 
acres of the best land, belonging to the people, and to be 
made use of by the people, upon railroad companies, capital- 
ists, and other speculators, he should certainly imagine the 
whole people would rebel against those who so outrageously 
and so shamelessly abuse its rights and its property. The 
people murmured a little here and there, and then was silent 
as usual : it knows that the theft committed against it is 
4 lawful', that it has itself elected the thieves, and then — it is 
4 represented' I 

And thus matters will remain so long as the people does 
not secure to itself a constitutional right to send home its 
law-making agents so soon as they act against its interest, 
and, moreover, reserves to itself the approval or rejection of all 
the more important laws and conclusions proceeding from these 



52 



agents. Let us put only this one question, — would a squan- 
dering of land ever have taken place if the people had had a 
voice in the matter? Their 'platforms', those election-baits, 
the politicians very willingly let the people ratif}', but to let 
it ratify their laws, their grants of land, their assessment of 
taxes, which acts practically answer the question after the 
execution of those most promising platforms, would never 
enter their minds. 



THE TWO-CHAMBER SYSTEM. 

Almost more contradictory yet than the combination of 
democracy with representation is the division of that repre- 
sentation into two chambers. One of those chambers represents 
that part of the people which constitutes the union, or the 
nation, and the other that part of the same people which con- 
stitutes the States of the union, or portions of the union, 
and in such a manner that the union-people may contend 
against and paralyze the States-people, and the States-people 
the -union-people. It is just as though the people were afraid 
of itself, and were obliged to fetter its own limbs to be safe 
from its own will. But this contradiction is not the only one. 
The smallest State sends, in true democratic spirit, just as 
many representatives to the senate as the largest, and the 
again truly democratic consequence of this is that the people 
occasionally upsets its own majority when the States having 
the smallest population vote down those having the largest. 
Ten States, each with 100,000 inhabitants, ma} T entirely par- 
alyze nine States, each with 10,000,000, and annul all the 
resolutions they may have made in the so-called popular house. 



53 



It may also occur that the two votes which a State, as such, 
gives in the senate annul the thirty and more votes which the 
inhabitants of the same State give in the house of representa- 
tives. If this is democracy, it ought to be defined somewhat 
after this fashion, — Democracy consists in the artifice of pro- 
curing for the smallest possible minority the government over 
the largest possible majority. To such an absurdity we are 
quite logically brought however by that thoughtlessness which 
attempts to escape the specter of a united State, that is, of a 
united people, by shutting up that people in separate cages, 
and then secures to those cages a particular representation 
towards their assembled inhabitants. 



THE SUPREME COURT. 

Besides the fiction which concedes to the States, as such, 
particular rights, particular wisdom, and therefore, also, a 
particular representation, to guard themselves from them- 
selves, that is, the very people that constitute it, we must not 
forget that fiction which intended establishing in the supreme 
court an independent protection for the people against their 
own justice. The unremovable board of the supreme court 
stands for a sovereign representation, as a power for pro- 
nouncing sentence, as congress stands a power for making 
laws ; and the court is even placed above congress as a decis- 
ive expounder of the laws. If, however, all sovereignty and 
power rests with the people, the people must reserve to them- 
selves the right to have a last word to say in matters concern- 
ing the courts as well as in matters of legislation. It is true 
that the position of the judges should be as independent as 



54 



possible, so that they may not be exposed to ordinary influ- 
ences ; but this independence can not be an unqualified one 
towards the whole people without destroying the conception 
of democrac} 7 , and occasionally making the judges masters 
of the State. Moreover, the supreme court of the United 
States suffers under the strange defect of its members being, 
creatures of the executive power, which lends a peculiar color- 
ing to its pretended independence, and under certain circum- 
stances might disturb the celebrated equilibrium of the three 
'coordinate powers' in a serious manner. 

As it was attempted to render slavery and the presi- 
dency harmless by all kinds of patching, and laws made for 
the occasion, and no one perceived that this purpose could 
only be gained by their abolition, so efforts were made to 
exorcise the dangers connected with the power of the supreme 
court by occasional changes, without examining into the 
nature of its whole position. Already Jefferson considered 
this position of uncontrollable judges nominated for life Aen- 
turous in the highest degree, and proposed to nominate them 
for five or six years onty, and empower the president and the 
senate to remove them. But this proposition does not go to 
the bottom of the evil either. The chief objectionableness 
to the supreme court, as that to the president and to congress, 
consists in its undemocratic position, inaccessible to the 'peo- 
ple, and in this position it is moreover protected b}- the old 
prejudice, which makes, so to speak, superior beings of the 
judges, is wont to surround them with a nrysterious glory, 
a sort of worldly holiness ; and when, corresponding to this, 
these superior beings appear in the imposing uniform, in black 
robes and white ermine, no one thinks of remembering any 
more that such venerable figures rise from the people, and 
ought to be dependent on the people, — the people, whose 
pockets, under certain circumstances, might be emptied, and 
whose heads cut off, at their command. A court-room appears 
to people like a church, where even Americans take off their 






55 



hats ; and even if the people is here liberated from that petty 
tyranny of monarchs which sees a particular crime in the 
'offence against an official', it 3-et permits a 'contempt of 
court' to be looked on as a crime, in such a manner that a 
judge has a right of imprisoning the sovereign citizen accord- 
ing to his pleasure, because he does not treat him as though 
he were a superior being. This whole worship of the court 
is simply based on tradition, superstition, thoughtlessness, 
and humbug. It is true that it is necessary that particular 
persons, possessing the requisite knowledge, and whose char- 
acter inspires confidence, should act as judges ; but these 
judges should have no privileges more than other servants 
of the people ; and the people should alwa3 T s secure to itself 
the right and the means to judge its judges, as all its other 
servants ; and it is certainly the destruction of all democracy 
that certain persons, placed like inviolable saints above the 
level of the people, are to dictate as the highest authority 
to the people what is right or, wrong, what lawful or unlaw- 
ful. From the people must proceed the legislative, from the 
people the executive, from the people the judiciary power ; 
and it must be accessible to the people through their chosen 
representatives. These representatives are first of all the 
legislators ; and as the executive, so should the judiciary 
power be subordinate to the legislative. Why should a judi- 
ciary commission of congress not be able to pronounce on the 
justice of some decision, or the constitutionality of some law, 
just as well as the wise heads of the supreme court? Are 
the judges, however, not to be nominated by the law-making 
agents of the people, then ought they to be elected b} T the 
people itself, and the people reserve to itself their removal, 
in the same manner as the change of those agents. 



66 
COORDINATE POWERS. 

It will not be superfluous to examine also the much- 
praised coordination of powers, looked upon as the most pro- 
found statesmanship, under a magnifjdng-glass. 

The constitution of the United States fixes the purpose 
and the authority of the three powers that are to act as the 
political organs of the people, without by special regulations 
defining their relation to each other. It nowhere speaks of 
'coordinate powers' ; but it was intended to practically estab- 
lish that which is generally designated by that term, and this 
was established. Each of the three powers — the legislative, 
the executive, and the judiciary — should, existing beside the 
two others, perform the duties of the sphere assigned it in 
such a manner that the activities of all should work together 
for one harmonious whole, and it was supposed that this 
would be the realization of the constitutional ideal. 

Upon a closer examination, we discover that these insti- 
tutions are based upon a great mistake, and that a contradic- 
tion was with them admitted into the State mechanism, which 
might remain silent for a while, but could not be suppressed 
for any length of time. The three powers may be represented 
as three horses before the car of State. Guided by a coach- 
man, they may carry their load evenly and harmoniously ; 
without a coach-man, they would infallibly collide, particu- 
larly if it were intended that they should not only draw 
together, but also check or clog each other. If the organs 
called State powers could act quite independently of each 
other, there would be a possibility for each to fulfil its pur- 
pose without encroaching on the rights of the other, or hav- 
ing its own rights encroached on, — provided there should 
exist again some higher power to guide them all towards one 
common aim. But they are to be not only dependent on 
each other, by mutually supplying and completing each other's 
activity, but they are also to watch over each other, and in 



57 



this complicated activity show and exercise the united highest 
power and authority, that is, that of the people, in a repre- 
sentative manner ; and this they are to do, endowed with 
equal rights, placed in equal positions, 'coordinated'. Let 
us now see how this relation of coordination appears in 
practice. 

Congress makes the laws. As traditional political views 
left no r room for the idea that he who makes the laws could 
and should execute them too, but considered a particular 
executive power necessary, a president was instituted. To 
make this president expressly and unconditionally a servant 
of congress, as logically his executive destination would have 
required, was considered somewhat venturous. As the senate 
was to serve as a brake on the house of representatives, so 
the president was to serve for a brake on both. He was 
therefore not subordinated to congress, but placed opposite 
to it, and authorized to annul its laws if possible by his veto ; 
and where he would not or could not do this, execute them 
with the power put at his disposal alone. Now is congress 
coordinate with the president, and the president with con- 
gress? Congress, as a legislator and a judge, is the superior 
of the president, but through his veto it is his subordinate 
again, and without his power it is nothing at all. The presi- 
dent as an executor is the servant of congress ; but, armed 
with the veto, the militar} r forces, the public treasury, the 
power to appoint all officials, and have the republic repre- 
sented abroad, he is its master : and how is the relation of 
both to the supreme court? Congress is. to decide on the 
arrangement of the supreme court, and also be a judge of its 
judges ; at the same time, however, these same judges are 
the authority for the laws of congress ; and the president is 
actually made the appointer of these judges, whose presiding 
officer, in case of impeachment, is to be his, the president's, 
judge. 

May this be called coordinate ? Coordinate only in con- 



58 



tradictions ! All three powers are both the superiors of 
and subordinate to each other at the same time. But what 
they are not, and can not be, is of equal rank, — ' coordinate \ 
They must occasionally jar therefore, and the events of the 
last years have given proof how much trouble it costs to 
silence and hush up their conflict by shifts and expedients, 
and laws made for the occasion. But this conflict will arise 
again, and not be set at rest before true democracy makes an 
end of it, — a democracy which knows and suffers to exist no 
other power but that directly established, dependent upon, 
aud directed by, the people. 

Let politicians meanwhile remember that the term ' coor- 
dinate powers' is not only an empty phrase but an actual lie, 
— in short, that no really coordinate powers exist, or can 
exist, in the State. 



THE COMPROMISE OF FREEDOM WITH SLAVERY. 

The third compromise we are to expose is that of free- 
dom with slavery. This, however, has within the last ten 
years been exposed already in the red light of the torch of 
war in such a manner that to enter upon the subject in detail 
would appear as a waste of words. We shall say but one 
word here upon a clause in the constitution, which we have 
that compromise to thank for. It is characteristic of the 
3 T oung days of the republic from the outset, that it was more 
liberal in its views when it ran away from its master than 
when it became its own master. In its declaration of inde- 
pendence it established the equality of the rights of all men ; 
in its declaration of rights, however, the constitution, it imme- 



59 



diately introduced inequality. Yet this was not done without 
some shamefacedness. To preserve at least the appearance 
that, in spite of the connivance at slavery, that demand of 
the declaration of independence, according to which 'the 
governed must be represented in the government', was being 
respected, the slaves, three-fifths of them, were indirectly 
represented too, of course not in their own interest, but in 
that of their masters. This might be called a compromise 
between man and beast. As a man, a whole man, the slave 
was not to be acknowledged, or he would have had to be rep- 
resented not by three- but by five-fifths, and by his equals ; 
nor was he to be regarded as a beast, or either all representa- 
tion must have been denied him, or other working animals, as 
horses and oxen, must have been admitted to congress for 
representation also. What, then, was done ? The slave was 
made a beast-man, and the grace shown him to acknowledge 
him three parts man and two parts beast. In all cases the 
beast-man, who was not and could not be a citizen, was 
admitted to representation in the constitution of the United 
States. The question we now have to ask is this, — have 
women, who are everywhere acknowledged five-fifths of human 
beings, and also citizens, less right to representation than the 
former beast-men ? That they are already represented by the 
men, as is often asserted, of that the constitution says not a 
word, possibly because the fifth question puzzled its authors. 
Consequently they are, according to the constitution, placed 
even below the former slaves, that is, not represented at all, 
neither directly nor indirectly, and yet they belong to the 
'governed', — aye, they are nothing else but governed, the 
governed par excellence. If this shameful conclusion, that the 
glorious republic places women legally even below the former 
slave, or beast-man, is not to be drawn, there is but one way 
to save its honor, that is, the acknowledgment that their 
quality as citizens of the republic comprehends the complete 
equality of their rights. 




' 




61 



lie. It guaranties to the single States a 'republican form of 
government', without, however, explaining by a word wha- 
to be understood by this ; it also secures to the citizens of 
the whole country the right of habeas corpus, and of trial by 
jury, protection against arbitrary searches, or seizures of- 
their houses or property, etc. ; but the chief libertie 
first lend value and stability to all the others, it in' I 
abandons to the sinsrle States. Entire exclusion from 
right of voting, that was formerly permitted in consid 
of the slave-holders, is now. when there are no more 
holders, save the male sex, abolished, it is true, save in 
to women ; but the laying down of the cod 
exercise of this right of voting in the sir g j Sta 
left to those States themselves. In the same manr :o»- 

stitution surrenders to them religious liberty, the freedom 
the press, etc. It permit.- the S lo everything it d 

not expressly prohibit, or res It prakfl 

instance, the - r>er money, the laving of any duty 

of tonnage, and so forth ; but it 

'legally' silence an abolition speaker, to '"iinpri- 

an ath writer, to -legally' exclude an unbe' 

office. Neither does it prohibit law ~ bag S 

oath upon the bible, and other re "ictions an 

hit ions, by which the personal rig I liberties of | 

of opposite eonvietior £ All this only cong- 

cssly forbidden to do, by the regulation ae 

vli no law is to be ma 
or of the press, t 

people to peace -senible* and no 

required as a quali 

antics for the Mess h 

ilh> 

DD at pleasure. That the; 
smai 
employed in the former slave and Furitan States, for 



62 



sake the constitution established no general guaranty for the 
chief liberties of a democratic commonwealth.* 

With these remarks we may close the general review of 
the constitution of this country. It has shown us that this 
celebrated constitution is in the main points entirely undemo- 
cratic, that it must render impossible a true democracy, a 
general, effective, and sure manifestation of the will of the 
people ; and the history of the present as well as the past 
shows by a thousand facts that this theoretical conclusion 
finds complete confirmation in practical reality. The real 
people is in America, as well as in Europe, little more than 
a voting and paying machine ; and, with the best of inten- 
tions, it will never bring about a change so long as it con- 
siders its constitution an ideal. 



SKETCH OF A NEW CONSTITUTION. 

In conclusion there yet remains the task of sketching in 
brief the changes to which this constitution should be sub- 
jected. They are as follows. 

The former union of republics must be declared one, indi- 
visible republic, and the former States, more practically 
divided, made provinces, that, after the abolition of their 
expensive legislatures, have their special affairs settled by 
circuit deputies. - 

The presidency and the senate must be abolished ; the 
house of representatives, however, changed into an assembly 

* How few guaranties are offered by the constitution against the anni- 
hilation of the most important rights by the single State was shown but 
quite recently by a ' law ' of the New York legislature, which, except for 
the governor's veto, would have, in view of the corruption of the courts, 
completely fettered the freedom of speech and of the press. 



63 



of agents or deputies of the people, in permanent session, 
who may be instructed by their constituents, or replaced by 
others, at any time. The executive power, as well as the 
legislative, rests with the house of the deputies of the peo- 
ple, that has its laws executed, and the general business of 
administration attended to, by an executive and administra- 
tive commission chosen from among its own members, or 
from among the people, and to be controllable and removable 
by the house of deputies. 

All more important laws are to be submitted to the peo- 
ple to have a particular vote taken on them, and only become 
valid by their direct approval. 

If business permits, the house of deputies may adjourn 
for a certain time, maintaining its permanence, however, by 
a deputation which, during the time of adjournment, is to 
watch over the executive commission, prepare necessa^ 
questions for the next session, and in urgent cases convene 
the assembly in an extra session. 

The fundamental rights that are to be laid down, con- 
clusively and in detail, must not be contradicted either by 
the general laws of the republic, nor by special regulations 
in the provinces. 

The provinces, circuits, and municipalities are to have 
the disposal, according to generally accepted rules, of all 
local interests, and all affairs not concerning the general pub- 
lic weal; but in doubtful cases, the house of deputies is to 
have the decision in the matter. 

The courts are to be made as independent as possible, 
but remain subject to the control of the people ; and the 
house of deputies shall be the last court of appeal, above the 
supreme court.. 

In the selection of deputies, the electors are not to be 

limited to persons from their own circuit, but may make their 

choice within the boundaries of the whole republic, — an 

arrangement by which the employment of the best and most 

t* 



64 



independent powers of the country, and the manifestation 
of the desires of all shades of party, are made sure of. 

These would be the chief points in a constitution in 
which the democratic principle, logically carried out, would 
be embodied, and which might fulfil all the conditions, drawn 
up above, necessary to a real government of the people. 

It is true that even the best of constitutions is not alone 
able to attain that purpose. The last question always remains, 
what use the people would put it to. If the mass of the peo- 
ple be indolent, unprincipled politicians will make use of 
even the best of constitutions for the disadvantage of the 
people ; if the people be bigoted and ignorant, its incapacity 
of judging will expose it to being misled and abused ; if it 
be financially dependent on a wealthy minority, the complete 
assertion of its rights will be doubly difficult. Political ref- 
ormation, then, can not be a radical cure for all evils without 
the so-called social reforms that are to make education and cul- 
tivation, and economical or financial independence, as general 
as possible. But political reformation is the indispensable 
condition for those other reforms : only through it will the 
needful freedom and opportunity be gained for the manifesta- 
tion of all social wauts and interests ; and while it works 
thus, while a truly democratic constitution introduces the 
whole people into the political arena, and makes the means 
by which it may manifest its will as easy of access as possible, 
it at the same time opens to it the only school where it may 
attain to the full qualification for independent citizenship. 
It is a dogma established, with mathematical incontestable- 
ness, that the improvement of social conditions goes on in 
closest proportion to the degree of freedom established, and 
the participation of the people in political action. Only by 
way of democracy can , the ' social problem ' ever be solved : 
the first of all 'social', as well of political questions, all over 
the world is,therefore, true democracy. 



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